Two-round Elections Research Articles

A Model of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation

In many countries, three or more candidates compete against one another in single office elections. I present a model of three candidates competing for a single office in which two candidates can form a coalition prior to the election (a pre-electoral coalition). Since the candidates are both policy- and office-motivated, one candidate can incentivize the other candidate to withdraw his candidacy by choosing a joint policy platform. I examine how electoral environments such as election rules, ideological distance, and pre-election polls influence incentives to form pre-electoral coalitions. I find that pre-electoral coalitions are more likely to form (i) in plurality elections than in two-round runoff elections, (ii) as the threshold for first-round victory decreases in two-round runoff elections, and (iii) as the two potential coalition partners’ ideological distance increases, conditional on divided support. Moreover, I analyze and compare voter welfare under plurality and the two-round runoff rules.

Identifying strategic voting in two-round elections

This paper proposes a new method to analyze strategic voting in ‘wasted vote’ situations. Two-round elections, in which the second round features three candidates, provide an ideal testing ground since the first round offers precise baseline measurement of the support for the third-place candidate. Estimations are conducted on 403 single-member district races from six general elections in Hungary. It is estimated that if the first-round vote share difference between the two leading candidates becomes smaller by one percentage point, the number of votes the third-place candidate receives in the second round diminishes by 1.4 percent. The effect is estimated to be strongest in 2010, while no strategic voting is found in the first democratic election in 1990.

Using Voter-choice Modeling to Plan Final Campaigns in Runoff Elections

Abstract Even though runoff elections are the most common form of presidential elections in the world, voter-choice behavior in these two-round elections have not received the attention they deserve in the literature. Two-round elections provide political consultants and candidates with rich and factual data on voter preferences, revealed through the voting behavior observed in the first round, which can guide the planning and implementation of their final campaign. They also allow political analysts to apply their voter-choice models to actual voting behavior (rather than voting intentions) in a multi-party election during the first round, and validate their predictions in a two-party election in the final round. I use results from the four most recent Brazilian presidential elections to demonstrate how voter-choice models can be applied to guide political campaigns in runoff elections.

Identifying the bandwagon effect in two-round elections

We propose a new method to test for the existence of the bandwagon effect, the notion that voters are more likely to vote for a given candidate if they expect the candidate to win. Two-round election systems with a large number of single-member districts offer an ideal testing ground because results from the first round provide a better benchmark for voter expectations than any possible alternative measure. Using data from the 2002 and 2006 general elections in Hungary, we find that the lead of a candidate in the first round is magnified by about 10 percent in the second round, controlling for country-wide swings of the electorate between the two rounds and for the behavior of voters of smaller parties. A separate exercise suggests that at least part of the effect is caused by the lower probability of individuals voting in the second round if their preferred candidate is likely to lose by a large margin.

Vote Au Pluriel: How People Vote When Offered to Vote Under Different Rules

AbstractThis article reports on an Internet-based quasi-experiment that took place during the French 2012 presidential election. We designed a website where French voters could vote under different voting rules. Based on the observation of more than 8,000 participants, we find that a substantial minority (10% to 15%) vote differently under the different systems, with 17% of the voters not voting for their preferred candidate in the one-round election, this percentage dropped to 12% in the alternative vote (first choice). Compared to the two-rounds election, at the aggregate level, the top two candidates get slightly more votes under one round, while the minor candidates obtain more first choices under the alternative vote. These findings are consistent with what the literature suggests about the impact of these voting systems on voters' choice.

Two-round elections, one-round determinants? Evidence from the French municipal elections

Using a new database of French municipalities that covers 821 towns and two elections (2001 and 2008), we examine how the budget structure, degree of electoral competition and the economic context affect the share of votes for the incumbent. We take into account the institutional details of the two-round structure of the electoral process created by French electoral rules (dual ballot under plurality rules). We show that in the first round of the electoral process, spending on equipment (including infrastructures) can influence the voter, and that electoral competition has a strong impact on the incumbent’s score. In the second round, the incumbent’s vote is affected more by national considerations and local budget variables have no effect. We show that the dynamics between the first and the second rounds are intense. The results suggest that the determinants of each round’s outcome in a two-round electoral process are different.

Dépenses « visibles » et perspectives de réélection dans un scrutin à deux tours : Le cas des élections municipales françaises

“Visible” expenditures and reelection prospects in two-round elections: Evidence from the French local elections We investigate the influence of economic and political variables on the electoral outcomes for the incumbent mayor’s political party. Our contributions are the following: (1) we deal with reelection probabilities at each electoral round, (2) we explicitly consider the specificities of the two-round electoral rule and the degree of political competition, and (3) we show that, notwithstanding the impact of traditional variables, the municipalities budget structure influence the electorate. However, operational expenditures and salaries prove strongly influential in France only at the first round. Visible expenditures are mostly influential in smaller municipalities. Finally, ideological and political concerns appear to prevail at the second round.

Strategic, sincere, and heuristic voting under four election rules: an experimental study

We report on laboratory experiments on voting. In a setting where subjects have single-peaked preferences, we find that the rational choice theory provides very good predictions of actual individual behavior in one-round and approval voting elections but fares poorly in explaining vote choice under two-round elections. We conclude that voters behave strategically as far as strategic computations are not too demanding, in which case they rely on simple heuristics (under two-round voting) or they just vote sincerely (under single transferable vote).

Strategic Vote Choice in One-round and Two-round Elections

The authors test a model of strategic vote choice in which the decision to support or not to support a candidate depends on the benefit associated with the election of a given candidate and the candidate’s perceived viability. They test the model with data collected in a series of experiments in which the participants voted in eight successive elections, four in one round and four in two rounds. Results show that the same model applies to both voting systems, although the impact of perceived viability is slightly weaker in two-round elections. The authors conclude that strategic considerations are almost as important in two-round as in one-round elections.

Prediction of amyloid fibril-forming segments based on a support vector machine

BackgroundAmyloid fibrillar aggregates of proteins or polypeptides are known to be associated with many human diseases. Recent studies suggest that short protein regions trigger this aggregation. Thus, identifying these short peptides is critical for understanding diseases and finding potential therapeutic targets.ResultsWe propose a method, named Pafig (Prediction of amyloid fibril-forming segments) based on support vector machines, to identify the hexpeptides associated with amyloid fibrillar aggregates. The features of Pafig were obtained by a two-round selection from AAindex. Using a 10-fold cross validation test on Hexpepset dataset, Pafig performed well with regards to overall accuracy of 81% and Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.63. Pafig was used to predict the potential fibril-forming hexpeptides in all of the 64,000,000 hexpeptides. As a result, approximately 5.08% of hexpeptides showed a high aggregation propensity. In the predicted fibril-forming hexpeptides, the amino acids – alanine, phenylalanine, isoleucine, leucine and valine occurred at the higher frequencies and the amino acids – aspartic acid, glutamic acid, histidine, lysine, arginine and praline, appeared with lower frequencies.ConclusionThe performance of Pafig indicates that it is a powerful tool for identifying the hexpeptides associated with fibrillar aggregates and will be useful for large-scale analysis of proteomic data.

When Does the Candidate Supported by the Median Voter Win? French Presidential Elections, 1965–2007

Abramson (2008) shows that the candidate of the median voter in the French two-round presidential election in 2007 was Francois Bayrou, but that he did not win the election — for the simple reason that he was eliminated at the first round of the balloting and so was not one of the two finalists in the second round. Looking at all eight French presidential elections in the Fifth Republic, over the period 1965–2007, we consider how typical of French presidential elections this 2007 frustration of the median voter was. While we clearly confirm Abramson's conclusions that Bayrou was the candidate supported by the French median voter in the presidential election of 2007, we find this frustration of the preferences of the median voter an essentially unique occurrence in French presidential elections — at least once we take into account differential turnout on first and second round balloting. Using a stylized model of the French political spectrum involving five electoral blocs (extreme left, left, center, right, and extreme right), we then attempt to explain why an electoral system that offers no guarantee of picking a Condorcet winner, and which has a multiplicity of first round candidates, nonetheless seems to do well in selecting Condorcet winners.

One-round vs Two-round Elections: An Experimental Study

The paper presents a series of experiments in which participants were invited to vote in four one-round elections and four two-round elections, with the same set of five candidates, among which three were viable and two were not. The experiments were designed to test the arguments put forward by Duverger and Cox about the propensity to vote sincerely or strategically in one-round and two-round elections. Our findings indicate little difference between the two systems. In both systems, there was a strong tendency to strategically desert the unviable candidates. The data thus support Cox over Duverger.

Uncertainty of voters' preferences and differentiation in a runoff system

Haan and Volkerink (Haan, M., Volkerink, B., 2001. A runoff system restores the principle of minimum differentiation. European Journal of Political Economy 17, 157-162, this journal) show that the principle of minimum differentiation holds in two-round elections for any number of candidates. We show that the principle of minimum differentiation may not hold, when uncertainty of the position of the median voter is introduced.

A runoff system restores the principle of minimum differentiation

We show that the principle of minimum differentiation holds in two-round elections, for any number of candidates, regardless of the presence of entrants, or the distribution of voters' preferences.